John Podesta became angry when a left-wing activist friend suggested softening the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate regulations to make them more palatable for lawmakers, according to illegally obtained emails released Wednesday by the group WikiLeaks.
“I’m kind of offended that you think we would water down the rule to get more support from the middle of the roaders on Capitol Hill,” said Podesta, who is now chairman of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign, in a 2014 email he sent to the activist when he was still counsel to Obama.
The email was part of the hundreds WikiLeaks released Wednesday from Podesta’s hacked accounts.
The seemingly harsh response was to an email from Sandy Newman, a prominent liberal activist, who asked whether there would be any give or take on the cornerstone of Obama’s climate agenda, the Clean Power Plan, to garner more support from Congress.
Newman was coming to Washington late in the year on a lobbying excursion with 30 members of a liberal group he was leading at the time. He said his message to Congress would be “to support the proposed regs and not do anything that would weaken them.”
But Podesta got testy after Newman suggested some level of softening of the climate rule, especially if it would take the president’s veto powers to fight off a revolt.
Congress at the time was building a legislative offensive against the climate rule that would take shape early in 2015. The Republican-led Congress later gained broad support in opposing the Clean Power Plan amid a major lawsuit by 28 states and more than 100 groups that eventually led to the plan being halted by the Supreme Court early this year.
“It does seem increasingly likely that, no matter how strong or weak the final regs are, presidential vetoes will be required to protect them,” Newman said. “If that’s right, does that argue for making the final rules tougher: a) because a veto will be required regardless, so there is little added political cost from making them stronger; and b) If there is in the end a negotiation, and if the Prez feels he must give something, there would be something that could be traded away without going to the core of the big difference that the rules as proposed accomplish.”
He noted that he had just met with Democratic Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and asked if he could arrange a meeting with Podesta. Casey had asked the White House to ensure the right balance was struck in devising the final power plan, while McCaskill had appeared wary of talking about the rule publicly as her state’s largest utility and coal mining companies warned of dire consequences.
Podesta wrote that he could not meet because he was flying to China, followed by the sentence that he was offended by the suggestion that the administration would trade away something in the final regulation.
The Clean Power Plan requires states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions a third by 2030 and is undergoing court review by a 10-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
